


Fear

by lovesdaryl



Series: The Letter [5]
Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M, Might contain triggers as Daryl experiences flashbacks to his childhood.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-09
Updated: 2014-08-09
Packaged: 2018-02-12 09:44:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2105028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovesdaryl/pseuds/lovesdaryl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They come back from a run and he isn't getting out of the car to greet her - and he isn't letting Hershel touch him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fear

He hadn't gotten out of the car first, crossbow in hand, to nod at her, letting her know he was okay. He hadn't gotten out of the car at all. The car hadn't stopped between the inner and outer gates either but just slowed down as Tyreese had told Hershel to be quick, they needed him, and he was going up right away, taking his charge with him as he couldn't walk up on his own.

She'd seen Michonne looking exhausted and worried in the passenger seat, had seen Glenn sitting in the back, looking down at something - someone - in his lap, and that in itself - him apparently allowing someone to hold him in their lap protectively - had been beyond scary. He hadn't looked up or out or even waved at her. She hadn't really seen him at all, except for his bony knees that were no longer covered by his torn pants.

Hershel gave her arm a slight squeeze before the two of them set out together, Rick joining them after closing the gate, worry for their hunter and tracker, for his friend, creasing his face, the three of them walking as quickly as Hershel's crutches would allow. She was grateful for his support, but her fear was making her windpipe constrict. 

How bad was it?

"Daryl is tough", Hershel said softly as they approached their cellblock. From afar, they could see Tyreese and Glenn helping Daryl out of the back seat of the car and into the prison, with Michonne holding the door for them. The men were holding Daryl much like Rick and Shane had back at the farm. The sight of them triggered the same memory for her and Hershel. "If he's made it this far, he'll be fine, you'll see. Remember him coming back after shooting himself?"

She was certain that reminding her of the time Daryl had nearly killed himself with his own crossbow, yet had twice managed to climb up a ravine after falling down all the way and stumble back to the Greene farm with a bleeding bolt hole in his side, was meant to reassure her, but it only served to heighten her anxiety. 

How often could one man survive almost dying? How often had he narrowly survived as a child? She had no way of knowing - he never talked about that time except in vague hints, in guarded looks, in pained silences, and by flinching or tensing up. As she didn't want to leave Hershel without an answer, though, she whispered, "I know he'll fight" in a small voice.

She hated herself for sounding so scared, but she couldn't help it. Never since the farm and after they'd taken the prison had Daryl gotten hurt so badly that he hadn't been able to go through with their ritual at the gate. Even after he'd been tortured and beaten in the wake of freeing Glenn and Maggie in Woodbury he'd made a point of walking up to the prison next to Merle after they'd helped fight off the walkers massing up at the fence, saving Rick's life.

He'd been hurting from head to toe then, with bruises and cuts littering his face and blood sheeting down his split cheek, his side black and blue where Merle had kicked him, cracking two ribs, to make the Woodbury mob believe that he was truly about to kill his own brother for them by beating and kicking him to death before their very eyes. But he'd walked up to their cell block. He'd moved slowly and carefully, keeping his breathing shallow and controlled, favoring his injured side, but he'd walked up on his own without help, and one corner of his mouth had curled up ever so slightly as he'd passed her in the yard.

How bad was it, for him to have stayed in the car without attempting to get out, without having to be held back by Glenn?

How bad was it, for him to allow them to touch him and all but carry him inside for all the world to see?

Rick held the massive metal door open for the two of them to walk through. When she glanced into the car in passing she saw nothing remained in the back seat or the trunk. Had he been lucid enough to take his crossbow along himself, which he would never willingly leave behind? Or had Michonne taken it for him?

Standard procedure called for the seriously injured to be taken to the warden's room outside their cell block proper where they'd set up a makeshift clinic that they kept expanding on whenever they found fresh supplies or equipment. Yet standard procedure didn't work for Daryl. If he could help it at all, he would never allow himself to be taken care of in such an exposed area, accessible to everyone. He'd feel as if he were a freak show on display in there, even with nobody else around, and as his friends knew this about him, they would have taken him up to the cell he used for storage and as emergency sleeping quarters, next to the perch he usually slept on as he couldn't stand the tightness of the cell.

And indeed Maggie and Beth were far ahead of them, both of them loaded down with medical supplies, both already two thirds of the way up the metal stairs leading up to the second floor. As the sun was already on its way down outside, someone had lit one of their good lanterns in Daryl's cell to give Hershel enough light to work by. The beam of light shining down onto the stairs cast a stark, skeletal shadow of the metal grating onto the cement wall and floor. An irregular trail of red droplets showed them the way. Carol's breath hitched in her throat.

Hershel was getting winded now and Rick cast him a questioning look, but Hershel just kept pushing on, betraying his concern. Although he would never say so out loud with Carol next to him, he was worried that Daryl hadn't given them any signal that he was conscious and holding on. Not even Daryl Dixon was completely indestructible, and he had had close calls in the past.

Michonne came down the stairs toward them as they started making their way up. She stopped, facing Hershel. "He's conscious, but he's drifting in and out. We met some baddies and he took a long fall through a second-floor window. He's got a deep cut in his side from the broken glass, and of course he hit the ground at the end of his fall. Tries to act tough, but he doesn't really succeed." She glanced at Carol compassionately, adding, "I'm sure he'll be fine, though, we took care of it right away, staunched the bleeding and bandaged the wound. He cursed us all the way here for going back already because of such a -" Her fingers painted quotation marks in the air. " - scratch."

Carol gave her a grateful look in answer to her encouraging words, but her chest constricted. This didn't sound good. What if the cut went too deep? What if it had injured organs or a major blood vessel? What if he had sustained internal injuries from his fall? They had no way of treating things like that, as she knew all too well. She'd been training with Hershel, receiving theoretical as well as practical instruction from him whenever circumstances allowed. Every time Daryl had shown up with major scrapes and bruises that he couldn't tend to himself, she'd been the one to take care of him as she knew he'd be more comfortable with her than anyone else.

This, though, was too big for her. She had no experience yet with injuries on such a scale. Today, it would have to be Hershel, and she would have to wait outside, not knowing how bad it was, unable to help him through it, and wait for Hershel's verdict until he came out of Daryl's cell again. She felt tears burning in her eyes at feeling this helpless. The last time she'd been relegated to the sidelines like this was with Sophia because she'd still been so inadequate at dealing with this new world, and it hadn't ended well. Worse yet, knowing Daryl, he'd worry about her not being there if he was lucid enough.

When they reached the perch, with Daryl's quiver and his empty crossbow leaning against the wall next to his stack of books and his neatly made up bedroll with his poncho draped over one end, Rick placed a gentle hand on her forearm to hold her back. They heard Daryl cursing up a blue streak at Tyreese and Glenn for moving him into position on his cot, his voice ragged. Hershel proceeded toward Daryl's cell and pulled the privacy curtain after Maggie, her hands stained red, holding a blood-drenched compress, had stepped out with Beth, followed by Glenn whose left hand and forearm were also covered in blood - all of it Daryl's. 

Glenn briefly squeezed her shoulder in passing before putting his arm around Maggie. "Let's give him space in there", Rick murmured, watching as Hershel closed the curtain. "You know he'll do all he can and do his best not to make him uncomfortable." She nodded, but she still hated being kept away from him.

Her hand went to the back pocket of her pants, one finger caressing the worn edge of the letter Daryl had written to her and agonized over before he had finally been able to actually give it to her, simply because it exposed so much of him. Daryl hadn't believed at the time that his feelings for her were reciprocated, thinking instead that he was exposing himself to hurt and ridicule. Therefore he'd had to jump over a considerable shadow to hand it over and discuss it with her later on - only to discover, much to his surprise, that Carol had already started falling for him at the Greene farm. Touching the paper that he'd carried on his person for so long gave her some small measure of comfort - it was almost as if she were indirectly caressing him.

The curtain was pulled aside once more as Tyreese came out of Daryl's cell, blood staining his entire right side from supporting Daryl and helping him up the stairs. Nodding at Carol reassuringly, he stepped up to Rick. "There were seven of them", he told the former deputy quietly, his voice a low rumble. "Managed to take them all out, though. Made sure nobody followed us as well."

Rick nodded gratefully. They'd become suspicious of strangers, shooting first and asking questions later despite Rick's misgivings. Hearing that an entire group of people had been wiped out simply because they needed to be kept from discovering the prison would have distressed him before Philipp Blake. Now, Rick looked at Daryl's crossbow against the wall, at the blood spattered on Daryl's bedroll, and felt nothing but grim satisfaction that they hadn't gotten away with hurting his closest friend.

Tyreese gave Carol another comforting nod before decending to the ground floor to get a shower and a change of clothes. Rick sat down on Daryl's bedroll, careful to avoid its owner's blood, and motioned for Carol to sit beside him. "From the sound of it, this will take some time to stitch up", he murmured, keeping his voice low so as not to distract Hershel. After all, Daryl's cot was not even a full yard away, and right now they wanted Hershel fully focused and at the top of his game.

They heard rustling from within. Carol recognized the sound of the squeeze bottle of antiseptic fluid as Hershel sprayed his hands with it, preparing himself. Next, she heard the sound of sterile gloves being snapped onto his hands. Then a metallic scrape as Hershel first uncovered the metal tray his tools for surgery were arranged on and then picked an instrument from it. 

Hershel's voice, quiet and soothing as he attempted to calm the cursing hunter down: "Now, let me get these glass shards out of your cheek first before I deal with your side ... That's it, just hold still, all I ... need to do ... is pick them out ... There, we're done."

Small objects being dropped into a bowl, and one or two pained grunts of protest from Daryl who, it seemed, wasn't so out of it that he didn't feel the pain of Hershel digging glass shards out of him with his tweezers. 

She felt as if a vacuum surrounded her. There was not enough air left in here to draw another breath. She couldn't lose him, not like this, not now, when he had only just admitted, even to hmself, what he was feeling. Not now, when he finally had a shot at finding happiness for the first time ever in his life. 

Barely a week had passed since he had brought Patrick in from a scouting run at the end of which he had managed to overcome his overwhelming issues with touch and embrace her, holding her close until Rick had found them. She didn't know details, and she would never ask for any, but she knew his life before had been hell, and now that he had begun to free himself of his past she needed him to be happy so badly. She managed to heave in a lungful of air with a terrible wheezing sound, and suddenly Rick's hand was on her arm again.

"Carol", he said, again very softly, "he'll be okay. Don't you hear him swearing? He's conscious and talking, that's got to be a good sign. This is Daryl, Carol. He's in pain, he's lost blood, he needs stitches, but he'll be fine. You know he wouldn't want you to worry like this. He's tougher than the rest of us put together."

She glanced at him with a watery smile and was about to answer when there was a frightened whimper and a metallic crash from Daryl's cell, followed by a moan. They heard Hershel calling out Daryl's name repeatedly, accompanied by sounds of a struggle. Both Carol and Rick's eyes widened in surprise. "What the ...?" Rick murmured, rising from Daryl's bedroll.

Hershel again, pleading with Daryl: "You've got to lie still or you'll hurt yourself even worse. I can't help you if you won't let me!" He sounded frustrated. 

More rustling, drowned out by Daryl's voice, groggy and rough with pain. "Don't touch me, for fuck's sake! Leave me be!" A groan escaped him. Carol's insides clenched. He hated being touched even at the best of times. Right now he might not even recognize Hershel, and he'd be afraid of allowing him to get close, let alone being touched by him. Hershel was an older man towering over him while he was helpless and in pain, which had to be triggering Daryl in all the wrong ways.

Just then the curtain opened and Hershel looked out with an expression that was equal parts hopeful and desperate. When he saw Carol sitting on Daryl's bed he sighed with relief. "I know this won't be easy for you, and I'm sorry for even asking", he began, "but he's not letting me take off his shirt and I can't ..."

Rising from Daryl's bed, trailing her hand over his worn poncho, Carol stood and met Hershel's eyes. "Let me help, please", she whispered. "Maybe I can get through to him so he can relax."

She felt Rick's hand squeezing hers as she passed him, but his touch seemed to come from another world. Nothing existed outside of that brightly lit cell. Maybe there would even be air for her to breathe, and she would no longer be a victim of her imagination feeding her images of Daryl dying in there, away from her, alone, afraid, in pain, as he'd been all his life. She followed Hershel inside.

.-.

He was so pale under his tan. His face and arms were glistening with sweat, and his left side was drenched with blood from his chest down to his knee and covered with bruises, scratches and cuts. It seemed he had landed on that side, and cut himself on it either while being pushed out the window or when landing on a glass shard already lying on the ground when he'd hit. His eyes were closed and he was mumbling softly to himself.

Looking at Hershel, she waited for his nod before approaching him. Daryl's cot stood against the righthand wall of the cell, facing the door, and as Hershel needed access to his left side his head was toward the door and his feet, still in their boots, lay on his pillow. It only took one step to get to him from the door. She crouched down next to him, careful not to touch him, but equally careful not to be completely silent. He needed to hear her advancing. She didn't want him freaking out because she seemed to appear out of nowhere.

"Daryl", she said, her voice soft but insistent. He didn't react and her heart speeded up in fear. "Daryl, I need you to listen to me."

His left eye was swelling shut, that side of his face rapidly taking on an ugly shade of purple under the dirt and blood, but his right eye opened as he attempted to look at her. "Doan ledim getme", he mumbled, the words slurring into each other. "Hurssobad a'ready, doanledim hurt me 'gain." Utterly spent by this outburst, he allowed his good eye to close.

Bowing her head, Carol sighed. "He thinks that you're -" she began, but Hershel interrupted her.

"I stitched him up back at the farm", he reminded her gently. "I saw what has been done to him, and I can guess who did it. Please, try to convince him that I am not him."

Drawing a shaky breath, Carol leaned toward Daryl again. "Daryl, do you recognize me? I'm Carol, your friend." She paused for a moment as he blindly turned his head to face her. Her voice shook when she continued. "You know that I'd never hurt you, right?"

"Carol", he mumbled. "Need ta give it to ya, need ya to know ..." He trailed off, his face contorting as he gasped for air, his good hand going to his chest.

"Have you given him any painkillers yet?" Carol whispered over her shoulder, aware that he always refused painkillers when asked if he wanted any. Watching Merle succumb to drug addiction had freightened him off any kind of drugs, even those that would help him. Seeing him like this, getting worn down by his demons, drowning in pain, was killing her. 

She'd not seen him after his accident at the farm before Hershel had taken care of his injuries. All she'd seen at the time, apart from him getting dragged to the house by Shane and Rick, were the dressings on the entry and exit wounds his bolt had left in his side and a clean bandage on his head. Two days later, he'd hunched over in pain during their fight in the stables after angrily swiping the saddle to the ground when she'd asked him not to go out looking again because she was losing hope that he'd find Sophia. Other than that, she'd never seen anything of what had happened to him then. She'd never seen him suffer like this, physically or mentally.

"I should have just cut his shirt off him right away, started by putting an i.v. line for painkillers or a sedative into his arm", Hershel answered unhappily, nodding at the bowl holding the bloodstained glass shards he'd picked from Daryl's face. "But I wanted to take it slowly, give him time to adapt to being fussed over. I didn't realize he hadn't recognized me."

She turned back toward Daryl once more. "Daryl, I will take your left hand now and hold it for a moment. Will you be okay with that?"

A nod, almost imperceptible. She gently took his bruised hand in hers, careful to avoid the weeping, dirt-clogged cuts on his hand and wrist.

"Daryl, you have given it to me", she then assured him softly, her thumb ghosting over his, the statement mystifying both Hershel and Rick, who was still sitting outside, listening to their conversation as if it were a radio drama being acted out live. "I've read it, Daryl. I know. Do you understand? I know what it says."

Hershel was surprised to see his patient visibly relax at this. He frowned at the back of Carol's head but didn't interrupt. She continued, her voice soft but intense. "You've just come back from a run, and you're hurt", she explained to him. "You're back home with us. Michonne, Ty and Glenn brought you back. You're safe here, nobody will hurt you."

His hand moved slightly, then curled around hers, seeking comfort. She held absolutely still, not wanting to spook him. As far as she knew, this was the very first rime he'd ever done this. He fought to get air into his lungs, and she realized that he knew he was in his cell and it was affecting him. He'd always hated staying in here.

"We've brought you here so you will have some privacy while Hershel is taking care of you", she told him, leaning in so he could feel her breath on his hand, feel her close to him. When he didn't withdraw she raised her free hand and gently cradled his injured one still holding on to her own. "You remember Hershel, right? He's taken care of you before when you got hurt. He's been your friend since we were at his farm, remember?"

He opened his good eye to look around himself. Hershel made sure he was in Daryl's field of vision, next to Carol, and placed one hand on her shoulder, reinforcing the information that he was a friend.

But Daryl got agitated again. His breathing, shallow and fast, speeded up even more as he brought his right hand up. He recognized Carol, and her being next to him, touching him, was okay; but his daddy, whom Carol insisted on calling Hershel for some reason, loomed over her shoulder and he was certain to hit either her or him at any moment. While he himself could take it, just as he always had, he couldn't allow him to hurt Carol. 

Yet when he reached out to hold him back, Carol caught his hand and held it. "It's okay, Daryl", she whispered soothingly. "Hershel would like to take care of the wound in your side that's hurting so badly right now. And he wants to give you something for the pain as well. But he needs to touch you to do that."

Daryl's found himself unable to breathe when he heard this. He shook his head no and tried to draw back, but a hot bolt of pain lanced through his side. He couldn't get away from him, and even if he'd been able to get off this bloody cot the fucker was blocking the way out. He felt panic and fear flooding him, not just for himself but for Carol as well. Panting, gasping for air, fighting to breathe, he tried to move, but the pain in his side nailed him down.

Carol looked at Hershel over her shoulder. His stool was already in the cell, and she asked softly: "Could you sit down, please? You probably look too tall for him right now." Hershel nodded and sat down.

Daryl, who had started gnawing on the inside of this cheek, relaxed slightly at this, but didn't move forward again, avoiding the pain that moving would have caused him. 

"I will put a plastic tube into your arm now", Carol explained softly as Hershel started picking up the i.v. kit in its sterile packaging from the floor. Only now did she realize that Daryl had thrown Hershel's instrument tray across the cell during his panic attack and got down to pick everything up. "Rick?" she called out when she'd found everything and heaped it onto the tray haphazardly. "Would you get Hershel a fresh instrument tray? Daryl's thrown everything on the ground, it's unusable."

Rick pushed in through the privacy curtain, briefly glanced at Daryl, gray-faced, utterly terrified, bruised and covered in blood, and turned pale. "How is he doing?" he asked Hershel, his worry obvious in his face, voice and eyes.

"Physically, not too bad, all things considered", the old vet assured him. "Certainly nothing we can't handle. He's lost a lot of blood, he's probably got some broken ribs and we need to cut down the risk of infection, but I think he'll be fine. He's not lucid, though, so this will be difficult."

Looking at his battered friend again, Rick found it quite hard to be optimistic. "Is there anything else I can do to help?"

"Just keep everyone away", Hershel asked him. "He's getting triggered easily just now. We don't want any loud noises while I'm working on him, and nobody coming in here. Can you do that?"

Rick nodded, accepting the tray from Carol. "Of course, whatever you need. Just make him better, okay?" Not waiting for an answer, he left to get a fresh tray for them while Carol washed her hands with antiseptic and put on gloves. Next, she wiped down the inside of Daryl's right elbow with an disinfectant, inserted the needle of the i.v. tube and set up a drip infusion with saline solution and a painkiller, hanging it from a nail in the wall, out of her way. He started mumbling again while she was preparing herself and him.

"What is it?" she whispered, leaning toward the injured hunter.

"Wanted ta get out for ya", he murmured. "Gate. Couldn't. Hurtin' too badly." His voice was getting stronger, his breathing less labored and shallow. The effect of the painkiller was setting in.

"It's okay", she soothed him. "You'll get out at the gate again the next time. Hershel will start stitching up your wound now, Daryl. You need to lie still for this, can you do that?"

He nodded twice, his good eye opening to look up at Hershel leaning toward him.

His dad moved in on him, reaching for his shirt. He wasn't done with him yet, but he was hurting so badly already. He must have thrown him down the stairs again for his whole left side to be on fire like this, and he still wanted to go on. Where was Merle when he needed him? His breath started hitching in his chest again and he felt as if he were suffocating. "No! Stay away!" he gasped. He raised his good arm in a defensive gesture, warding off the blow he expected. 

This did not compare to his flinch from Carol's approach at the farm. This was full-blown terror at a man next to him as he lay on a bed, helpless. Startled, Carol looked over her shoulder, then turned back to him. "Daryl, that's Hershel, he's going to help you, like he did before, at the farm. Don't you remember him?"

Daryl tried to shake his head, panicking, his arm still up, and Hershel muttered: "Carol, maybe you should do this. It's obvious that he doesn't recognize me right now."

She nearly froze in place. "But ... His entire side is drenched in blood, Hershel! This is too big for me, I don't have the ..."

He gently interrupted her. "You've stitched him up before. All you'll need this time is more thread - and we haven't even seen yet how bad his cut really is. Maybe it's just been bleeding profusely, but isn't really that big or deep. You can do this, Carol. I'll be here to assist, but I will stay away from him."

"If you're sure?" she asked in a small voice.

"You've been an excellent apprentice, dear", he said warmly. "If I wasn't sure I'd just give him something to knock him out and do it myself, but that wouldn't be in his best interest. I don't want to traumatize him even more. We'll take this one step at a time, and I'll be here if you're uncertain - but I know you can do this. Now, take off his shirt so we can have a look at him."

This, she knew, was going to be a major issue for Daryl. He never ever took off his shirt with anyone around as he was so ashamed of the marks his father had left on his body. In all the time she'd known him, she'd only seen him without his shirt once, on the day he'd shot himself after getting thrown off by Nervous Nelly, and she was certain he'd been drugged nearly out of his mind against the pain that night, or he would have flinched at her entering his room instead of only when she'd leaned down to kiss his temple.

She heard Rick clearing his throat outside the cell before he announced: "Your fresh tray's here. Should I bring it in?"

Hershel reached out through the curtain and thanked him. Rick muttered something, adding: "I'll be out here, in case you need anything, okay?"

.-.

He felt warm and comfortable. The pain had subsided to a dull throb down his left side that he could easily deal with. He could feel Carol's hands gently unbuttoning his shredded and sticky shirt, whispering softly all the while, letting him know it was her touching him as he was facing toward the wall, looking at the dirty grayish paint with his one good eye. This was Carol, not his dad, and he was perfectly fine with her undressing him, with her seeing him and all his imperfections. 

Before he had opened up to her, he had been lonely in the worst way there was - alone in a room, a house, a prison full of people. 

No more.

He knew that she, out of all the people he'd met before and since the world had ended, accepted him just the way he was, without reservations. He even dared to hope that, if he didn't fuck this up, she might come to ... love ... him. He had nothing to go by, of course, but he damn well suspected that he loved her already. Had loved her for some time now, in fact. Merle would have his fucking ass if he'd lived to hear him drop the L bomb.

Maybe, with her, he'd be able to stop surviving and start living.

He could feel her hands on his side now, sharp, brief little flashes of pain as the needle went through his flesh and skin where her fingers held the edges of the gaping cut at his waist together, the thread tugging on him as she pulled it through him. She would not hurt him if she could help it at all, he knew. He closed his good eye and allowed himself to drift off, relaxing into her touch. 

His dad had left. 

It was only her and him now.

He was safe.

.-.

When he woke up, the first thing he noticed was that his fucking curtain was closed, making his cell seem even more claustrophobic than it felt with the damn thing open so he could look out. He fought against the urge to bite his cheek as he could taste blood already - it seemed he'd been biting himself in his sleep. He also realized that he wouldn't be able to get up and open the bloody thing himself as his left side was numb from his shoulder down to his foot, with a dull thrum of pain lurking just under the surface. To top it all off, he was suffering from a killer headache.

He remembered, dim and vague, four men coming at him with their faces contorted in hate and fear, and loosing three bolts at them in quick succssion, the reloading fucking up his palms as he yanked back his bowstring with both hands each time.

He remembered driving his knife into two heads, one through the temple, one upward through the jaw, the warm blood running down over his hand, a sharp contrast to the cold, congealing goo that covered you when you were killing a walker - a poignant reminder that you were killing living, breathing human beings.

He remembered getting jumped by another man who, with yet two others, had crept up behind them, trying to pin his arms to his side and disarm him. He'd fought back, but hadn't been able to shake him before Rick and the others had taken out the remaining two. At this point, things got even more hazy. He seemed to remember falling, with a firy pain engulfing his waist as he tumbled down to land hard on his left side.

So that was where the pain came from. It shouldn't be too bad, then, really. He'd taken many falls before, and many beatings. He resolved not to let this one bring him down and opened his eyes.

Opening his left eye all the way proved difficult, but he did his best, Merle's voice goading him on. Once he got the images from his eyes to overlap, he slowly inched his right leg toward the edge of his cot, turning slightly sideways, preparing to swing his legs over the edge and sit up.

His heart seemed to miss a beat.

Carol was sleeping on his chair, next to his ricketty table which was covered with medical shit, slightly hunched over and leaning against the wall next to her. In the dim, gray morning light filtering in through the thin curtain he saw she was holding something in her right hand. Her left was curled up on his cot, next to his shoulder. She looked frail and vulnerable, but he knew how misleading this impression was. She was far stronger than him. Stronger, probably, than any of them.

Moving again would bring him into physical contact with her. This, he found, was no longer a concern for him. Touching her and being touched by her was okay. Now that she had read his letter she had far better ways of hurting him than with any kind of touch, good or bad. No concerns there, either. He knew he would always be safe with her.

A blurred image resurfaced then. Carol, leaning over him with a bandage in her hands, preparing to put it on him. Stiffly and carefully raising his left arm, mindful of the pain threatening to assault him, he squinted at the bandage on his hand, reassuring himself that this was, in fact, a memory and not a dream image.

Stunned, he realized that, for the first time ever in his life, the memory of someone looming over him, about to touch him, did not cause him to seize up and panic, but instead filled him with warm comfort. She had taken care of him, taken care of his injuries. She cared enough to sit with him as he slept.

He focused on her right hand, curious. His face and ears flushed a bright red when he recognized the sheet of paper, its creases so familiar.

She had read it again while watching him sleep.

He rolled over all the way to lie on his right side, and his face almost touched her hand, still curled up next to him. His heart was hammering in his chest and he had forgotten his headache.

Ever so softly, heat coursing through him from head to toe, he brushed her hand with his lips.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for putting him through this ...


End file.
